Reflections

Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter – like the river banks – forcing the spontaneity into various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.   – Rollo May The creative life requires this gentle tension between freedom and structure, or spontaneity and limitations as May says.  This is where a Rule of Life can be helpful, providing a gentle trellis of structure for our lives.  When approached with freedom and playfulness, boundaries can really help spark our creativity.  I find in my teaching, I need to introduce participants gently and slowly

  I have an altar space in my prayer corner in our living room. It is set on top of a beautiful old secretary desk that is from my father’s family and so in the last century and a half has traveled from Latvia to Vienna to New York to Sacramento to San Francisco to Berkeley to Seattle (those last four just in the last ten years).  There is a secret compartment inside and when I first lifted it open I discovered a shipping document that had the seal of the Third Reich on it, quite a history it has.  Inside

To follow up on my last post, some wonderful and wise words from the great mystic Chardin: Above all, trust the slow work of God. We are, quite naturally, impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new, and yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stage of instability – and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually

  Those of you who have seen me and asked about my vacation in Kauai have heard me talk primarily about one thing: Sea Turtles.  Snorkeling with those ancient and slow creatures was a highlight for me and turtles keep showing up in my imagination as a guide for me in these summer days.  Last Friday I went to my dream group wearing a glass turtle necklace I had purchased while away.  I ran into the two other members of our group outside and one was wearing a turtle necklace and the other had on a turtle earring.  It felt like synchronicity indeed. 

God, help me to think of my small, formless, imperfect soul as constantly subject to your loving, creative action, here and now, in all the bustle of my daily life, its ups and downs, its anxieties and tensions and its dreary, unspiritual stretches—and gradually giving it, through these things, its ordained form and significance. So that in all the events of my life, even the most trivial, I experience your pressure, Creative Artist. -Evelyn Underhill, Meditations and Prayers Can you imagine God as a great Creative Artist?  What would it mean to live with an awareness of God’s creative power

No matter what your work, let it be your own. No matter what your occupation, let what you are doing be organic. Let it be in your bones. In this way, you will open the door by which the affluence of heaven and earth shall stream into you. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson If you are here unfaithfully with us, you’re causing terrible damage. If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love, you’re helping people you don’t know and have never seen. Is what I say true? Say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning

These last few weeks certain themes have been on my mind in connection with creativity: radical self-care, dream-tending, contemplative living, and humility.  My body continues to feel tired and my intuition and dreams have been screaming at me to not make the trip down to Berkeley to teach later this month.  And so early this week, with the advice of my doctor and the support of a wonderful husband and great friends, I made the difficult decision to not go.  Thankfully, my good friend and colleague Amy Wyatt has agreed to step in and take my place which helps relieve my